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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  July 12, 2012 9:00pm-10:00pm PDT

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thanks so much from "the new york times. >> ed, you are free to root for the patriots. >> oh, gosh. well, i'll tell you what, i'm getting my viking contingency fired up soon here. we did learn on the offseason how to put the uniforms on. we should be better this year. >> thank you, ed. and thank you at home for staying with us for the next hour. the first time that mitt romney ran for office was in 1994. he ran for the u.s. senate from massachusetts. >> i believe that abortion should be safe and legal in the country. i have since the time my mom took the position when she ran in 1970 as a u.s. senate candidate. i believe since roe v. wade has been the law for 20 years we should sustain and support it. i was an independent during the time of reagan-bush. i'm not trying to return to
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reagan-bush. i want universal coverage. i want everyone in massachusetts and this country to have insurance. >> despite trying his best to run to the center, to appear to be a moderate, mr. romney even promised he was to the left of his opponent ted kennedy on the issue of gay rights in that election. despite that herculean ideological stretching, mr. romney lost the race badly to senator kennedy. it was not the culture war issues, the social issues that are credited with having made the difference in that election. the race didn't end up being much about health insurance or even whether or not mitt romney or ted kennedy were liberal or conservatives on abortion rights or gay rights or gun rights or anything like that. observers of the race say mitt romney lost that badly. look at that. he lost by 17 points to ted kennedy in that race more because of this issue. >> mitt romney's ads claim he created jobs, but what's the record?
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his firm bought a company and moved the headquarters to dallas. his firm bought a company called scm, fired all 350 workers. told some they could reapply at a 25% pay cut. many pregnant or older were denied jobs. and romney made $11 million in two years. mitt romney, he's misled us twice. with negative ads distorting senator kennedy's record and the phony claims about his own. >> i would like to say to mitt romney if you think you can make such a good senator, come out here to marion, indiana, and see what your company has done to these people. >> we had no rights anymore. >> they cut the wages. >> we no longer had insurance. >> basically cut our throats. i would like to say to the people of massachusetts that if you think it can't happen to you, think again. because we thought it wouldn't happen here either. >> mitt romney. i don't mean to be callous, but there are people all over the world who would love a job flipping hamburgers in america. romney, in business he specialized in low wage jobs but
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made $11 million in two years. now he favors policies to benefit the wealthy at the expense of working families. romney favors $100 billion tax cut for the wealthiest 1% of americans and billions more in other tax breaks for the rich. romney, trickle down economics and a millionaire's tax cut. whose side is he on? >> those are the ads ted kennedy used against mitt romney in 1994. specifically the folks from indiana, they had a whole series of ads like the ones for indiana, highlighting what mitt romney's bain capital did to the people who worked at the companies that romney and bain personally got rich off of. ted kennedy devastated mitt romney in 1994 in that senate race in those ads. so ted kennedy went back to the senate. mitt romney went back to bain. and he did a stint at the salt lake city olympics. when he decided he wanted to run again for public office, mr. romney man in 2002 for massachusetts governor. he ran against shannon o'brien.
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and shannon o'brien, no surprise, decided to run by upstating the same attacks that were so devastating against romney eight years earlier in the ted kennedy senate race. instead of the indiana paper mill that ted kennedy used in the ads against mr. romney in 1994, eight years later in 2002, shannon o'brien decided to use the gst steel mill experience against mr. romney. gfc still steel mill was a mill in operation since 1888 before bain got ahold of it. the end was the mill shut down. 750 jobs lost. their pension benefits were cut by hundreds of dollars a month. on the pension thing specifically, the federal government had to pitch in tens of millions of dollars to bail out the workers that bain cut off through a pension guarantee program. but hey, bain made money off it. mitt romney made money off it. shannon o'brien hit mitt romney with that story in 2002. newt gingrich hit mitt romney with that story this year. the whole king of bain thing
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that newt gingrich deployed against mitt romney. rick perry hit mitt romney with that last year. president obama's campaign hits mr. romney with it, too. >> they issued 125 million dollars of bonds. and out of that $125 million debt, they paid themselves almost $40 million. >> like a vampire. came in and sucked the life out of us. >> every time mitt romney has been hit with political criticism for that economic bomb that he and bain capital dropped on those steel workers, in part leaving the taxpayers to clean up the mess, every time he's been hit by that, his response has been the same. the response is, i wasn't there. i didn't do it. yes, mr. romney said he made the initial decisions about that company, but, you can't blame
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him for how it turned out because he was gone by the time it blew up. he was gone from bain after 1999. he went do go run the olympics. he was gone from bain after 1999 and the bankruptcy didn't happen until 2001. so you can't make him answer if that bankruptcy. you can't make him answer for anything at bain after 1999. that's what he's been saying this year about the criticism. that was the response to primary rivals hitting him with it last year. that was also his response in 2002, when shannon o'brien used it against him ten years ago. i wasn't there. i didn't do it. i don't have to answer for anything at bain after 1999. i left. >> you know at the time that plant closed i was at the olympics, and when i left massachusetts to go run the olympics and left my organization, i was out there full time. as a matter of fact, as i recall, you brought a challenge
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against me, and your party did, to say i wasn't qualified to be governor because i was in utah. you were right. i was in utah full time. i had no responsibility for management at bain capital. our lawyer has pointed that out to you. the executives at the steel company. >> you still haven't answered the question. >> you keep asking new questions. >> i asked one. >> i'm trying to answer as quickly as i can. >> i asked one question. >> and the answer is i was at the olympics running the game. that was a job i had. therefore, i was not running bain capital, and therefore not responsible for the actions of bain capital when i left. >> i am not response for bain capital when i left, and i left in 1999. mr. romney has made that same argument in response to criticism over a whole lot of things that his company did. the "washington post" last month ran this rather devastating story on romney and bain,
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investing in firms that helped american companies shift jobs overseas. mr. romney's company investing in and managing companies that called themselves pioneers in outsourcing. again with the steel plant, mr. romney's response is i wasn't there. i didn't do it. i don't ve to answer for anything at bain after 1999. i left. the romney campaign asked for a retraction of the washington post stair. they said that story is wrong. i wasn't there. i didn't do it. i don't have to answer for anything at bain after 1999. i left. kind of sounds like a good defense, right? if the guy didn't work there when this stuff happened, how can he be held accountable for what he did after he left? well, it maybe should have been a sign when the "washington post" did not retract its story about mr. romney and those outsourcing firms despite the campaign's very public demand. over the last few weeks david corn at mother jones magazine and josh marshall started reporting that the seemingly airtight defense, this trap door that mitt romney has been
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jumping through in every political contest he's been in since ted kennedy beat him so badly 18 years ago, using mr. romney's business record. this escape hatch he's using for some of the most politically damaging damage that bain wrecked on american workers and communities while getting very rich themselveses in the process, that defense of his, that i wasn't there, i didn't do it. i left in 1999. maybe that defense is not true. today "the boston globe" leads with this story. look. romney stayed longer at bain. firm's 2002 filings identify them as ceo. though he said he left in 1999. according to the globe's reporting. the findings show mr. romney listed as the sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer and chairman of the board. not just in 1999 when he says he left, but also in 2000, 2001, and 2002. he got paid six figures for being an executive of the firm.
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during his time period in which the most potent political taxes used against him have for years now been i wasn't there, i didn't do it. i don't have to answer for this. i left. it doesn't seem like he left. today's report in the boston globe shared the lines of christopher rowland. thanks very much for being here. congratulations on your -- today. >> thank you. thanks for having me. >> you know more about the story and the documents on which it's based than i do. i have to ask if i got anything wrong there. is there anything i should correct? >> no. basically the rough outlines are as you say. mitt romney has used his departure date of 1999 from bain as his first line of defense for a variety of attacks by the obama administration and for democrats before that, for
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years. really this has been his main talking point when confronted with things like bankruptcies and layoffs and a lot of the difficult things that bain did over the years. so what's really interesting now, though, when you see in paper trail an and the sec documents that list him throughout a variety of documents as president, ceo, chairman of bain capital and sole owner of a variety of investment partner ships, including five that were created in 2002. so the paper trail that they created over those three years really paints a totally different picture of mitt romney's involvement with the firm. if you look at the paperwork alone, it shows that he was the man in charge. that's a big startling change from the way that they've described it over the years. now the key is that they -- he indeed did leave.
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he was indeed in salt lake. so, you know, to a certain extent, he's legally in charge. i don't think that the globe and other reporting is not saying he was in the boardroom on a daily basis at bain calling the shots. but certainly his records show that he was in charge. he had legal responsibility. he was the man with oversight responsibility for people in the company. >> well, is it legal or, i guess, more broadly, is it considered kosher in business terms to be listed on sec filings as the firm's sole stockholder and president? while you've got partnership agreements. you have the entities starting up new entities in business. but to actually have that person have no role whatsoever in that firm? is that legally sound? >> well, certainly there's a variety of experts and former sec commissioners and the people like that. and lawyers in this field who say that it's not entirely
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kosher. and these sec documents do matter. they are material to the operation of a variety of companies that are buying and trading shares and one of the keys is bain capital is not a publicly traded company. so it's a little different than misleading investors about who your ceo is, mom and pop on main street can't buy stock in bain capital. but what it does do is it paints a far different picture than was reported to be the reality, you know, that there was a different band of people running that company. and so these documents are throughout sec filings. some people have said that, and the romney people suggest sort of on background, although they haven't come out and asserted this directly, that it's more of a technicality and legality and there was sort of a legacy filing, but when you see five companies, you though, five investment partnerships being
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created by mitt romney in 2002, brand new, it sort of doesn't sound like legacy filings or leftovers that happened to find itself way in there. >> there's been some discussion today about whether or not the romney folks were looking for a correction or a retraction on the article, as i understand it there's no correction or retraction forthcoming from the globe. the specific complaint, what they said is the article is not accurate. governor romney left bain capital in february of 1999 to run the olympics and had no input on investments of the company after that point. let me just ask you whether or not you have reported anything either way about whether or not he had direct investment or management of companies after that point. it seems like that's beside the point of what it is that you documented today. >> right. our story was really limited to looking at the discrepancies and the contradictions in this paperwork. so if you look at what the sec filings show that bain on paper was calling mitt romney their
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president is their leader and their chief executive after 1999 up until 2002. on the other hand, they filed a financial disclosure report in the most recent one and again in 2007 that he left bain capital in 1999 and he actually retired. and so it's really difficult for most laymen and most people in the political sphere as well to understand how both these things can be true. how can you retire from a company in 1999 and then remain as president and ceo and chairman? so that's a discrepancy that we're reporting and that's the crux of the story. and the romney people did ask for a correction. they're not getting one. they haven't been table to show that any of the reporting was inaccurate. they don't like the take of the story, and they don't like the way it looks. and that's been the difficulty for them. one of the things that's really interesting in our reporting that we've uncovered is mitt romney himself in 2002, i think you alluded to when he was --
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the democrats tried to get him off the ballot in massachusetts in 2002 by challenging his residency, and during the hearings that challenged the residency, he successfully beat that allegation, but he said during his testimony that i took a leave of absence. so even his own frame of mind in 2002 as he looked back over the previous three years was a leave of absence. it wasn't retirement. but now you fast forward 15 years and look at what they're saying now in the financial disclosure form, for example. it says retired. so they've really sort of evolved to what they've said themselves and what the candidate had said himself about his frame of mind during that time. >> christopher rowland, the washington bureau chief of "the boston globe". thanks for helping us sort there this. and thanks for your reporting on this. >> thanks for having me. >> isn't it uncanny to the way it always evolves that he gets credit for things that are seen as good and no credibility for that seen as bad. it's uncanny.
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no videotape of that event tonight in wyoming. very sorry. the former vice president, dick cheney, is hosting mr. romney tonight in wyoming at an event that is closed to tv cameras. as you see here. there will be no video evidence of mitt romney standing next to dick cheney tonight. let me offer one possible reason for that. that right there, you see it? very small. dick cheney's approval rating when he left office in 2009, a very impressive 13%. impressive in the sense you have to try to get an approval rating that low. george bush despite his best efforts almost managed to get an approval rating that low. even he could not -- territory. and at that joint appearance, no cameras. it is awkward. the bush years were bad years for the country. no one wants to remind the country of what it was like the last time a republican was in
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the white house. in one political way it is awkward. there is some stuff about the bush-cheney years that was pretty good compared to what romney is offering right now. they did some significant outreach to minority voters. you may recall mr. bush's 2004 cam main manager going to the naacp in 2005 during president bush's second term, making a genuine effort to court african-american votes. mr. melvin apologized to the naacp on behalf of the republican party for the party's history of playing racial politics in the cast in order to court white voters. he said it was wrong for the republicans to have done that. during the election campaign in 2004, president bush did outreach to the african-american community with a vote with his african-american staring community. the bush administration despite the many, many, many, many, many faults did also make real attempts to reach out to the hispanic community. on policy, george w. bush advocated for comprehensive
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immigration reform. he reached out to democrats like ted kennedy to reach out the broken immigration system in a bipartisan way. he failed, of course, but at least he tried on the policy. and on politics the bush team did so much outreach to the hispanic community that he managed to increase his share of the hispanic vote from 2000 to 2004 when he was dramatically less popular overall. george w. bush got 42% of the hispanic vote in 2004. mitt romney on the other hands, in terms of policy, he's trying to appeal to the public by proposing his immigration policy. he calls it self deportation. he's promising to follow the lead of arizona, of all places, for national immigration law. that sort of outreach has earned him an appeal with hispanic voters that is, look at that, 40 points below president obama. he's even down 18 points from what george w. bush did with hispanic voters. the romney campaign is trying to move the hispanic voters. want to know how?
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they released this ad yesterday. it features mitt romney's son craig speaking spanish. that's something. how much fire power is the romney campaign putting behind the ad? reportedly they are putting up $10,000 for that ad buy in raleigh, north carolina. $10,000 which is 1 million cents. just for comparison. here's the amount the romney campaign is putting behind the latest obama is a lying liar right now just in north carolina. so the hispanic outreach ad, that will apparently be coming to a local cable access channel near you, but probably not in prime time. beyond his panic outreach, how is the republican side doing on african-american voter outreach? earlier this year the rnc
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promised a big new voter outreach effort to court african-american voters. the republican party said they were going to introduce a brand new website that supposed to, quote, go live in the next two weeks. featuring testimonials from the party's most prominent black elected officials. including florida congressman allen west and south carolina congressman tim scott. in the wake of mitt romney's not so excellent adventure at the naacp yesterday, the website talking point memo decided to see whatever became of the planned rnc outreach program. quoting tpm, the site cannot be ready found on the web page. an official told tpm they don't currently have an african-american website, raising the speculation that it never came to fruition. and never it's been taken down and when it was up nobody noticed it. they're right. there's nothing there. if you go to the republican website, there's nothing there. they said in april, week, two
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weeks it will be there. it will be awesome. now it's july. there's nothing there. you know, give him credit. the republican party actually knows their base. that's where they are focusing their voter outreach right now. right this second it's in wyoming. at a country club with a certain someone who once shot a guy in the face but now had a brand new heart. they know who they are. they just don't really want to talk about it that much. nor do they want you to see any moving pictures of it. if you are one of the millions of men who have used androgel 1%, there's big news. presenting androgel 1.62%. both are used to treat men with low testosterone. androgel 1.62% is from the makers of the number one prescribed testosterone replacement therapy. it raises your testosterone levels, and... is concentrated, so you could use less gel. and with androgel 1.62%, you can save on your monthly prescription.
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one a day men's 50+ is a complete multi-vitamin designed for men's health concerns as we age. ♪ it has more of seven antioxidants to support cell health. that's one a day men's 50+ healthy advantage. the mitt romney presidential campaign picked today as the day to launch a new ad campaign essentially calling president obama a liar. everybody expects harsh language in campaigns on all sides. this is the romney campaign really sticking their necks out. they're calling the president a liar for criticizing mr. romney for things done by his old company, bain capital. the grounds on which they're calling the president a liar is they're saying those things happened after 1999, which is
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when mitt romney has been saying he left bain capital. here's the bad timing part. unfortunately for the romney campaign, they decided to launch their new ad on this today, on the same day "the boston globe" published a blockbuster saying sec shows mitt romney still owned bain capital well past 1999 no matter what he says. this is bad timing for mitt romney. calling the president a liar or criticing him for bain on the same day it's revealed mitt romney was still at bain after 1999. who is the liar? and romney campaign already made a big buy for the hotly crucial swing states. bad timing, right? if you look at the poll map of swing states, it looks very much like 2008. but there are a few wild cards because there are a bunch of states that barack obama won in 2008, that not only did john kerry lose, but nobody thought any democrat would have a chance of winning them. barack obama won indiana. he won north carolina f. he won colorado and nevada, and
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he won virginia, which no democrat had won in a presidential race since 1964. not even bill clinton either time. but barack obama won virginia and he won by a lot. even though before 2008 his presidential politics were so very red for a very long time, virginia as a place overall had been sort of getting bluer and bluer. democrats had control of the state senate. they had ousted republican george allen from the senate in 2006 and replaced him with a democrat named jim webb. they have a popular governor named tim warner. the democratic part of the state were growing and becoming more influential in the state. if virginia was not exactly cobalt blue by the time of the obama election, it was trending to a bluey shade of purple. barack obama wins it really big in 2008.
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and then, since then, virginia has been through kind of a big reversal. the electoral equivalent of whiplash. in 2009 virginia elected an anti-abortion activist governor, bob mcdonnell. a guy who drop what he was doing in the mid-30s so he could go to path robinson's university. he wrote a graduate thesis on how government should design public policy to punish homosexuals and fornicators. hey, that's me. he spent his time cosponsoring 30 bill ls. and in 2009 virginia elected him governor. the same year if 2009 virginia picked this guy as governor. he spent his first years in office suing the federal government over health reform. how did that work out? he also designed a new and more modest version of virginia's official state seal. then virginia elected a legislature that passed a bill
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requiring a medically unnecessary vaginal probe ultrasound for any woman trying to get an abortion in virginia. a forced vaginal probe ultrasound. and last how governor bob mcdonnell became coast to coast as governor ultrasound. and now nobody thinks he's going to be vice president of anything. at the last minute they did change the law so it's not technically a forced vaginal ultrasound specifically, but it is still forced, and they made sure that you have to pay for it. the virginia state government, under republican controlled mandates that you have to have a medically unnecessary ultrasound and you have to pay for it. if you can't afford it, virginia wrote up a list of places where you can get one for free. and they're all the anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, which are less real medical clinics and more places where anti-abortion activists stand ready to give you a lecture, and free scary literature along with maybe your free ultrasound. under this new republican governor in virginia, politics there have gone off the rails.
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virginia republicans have become a liability for even the national republican party. instead of possibly sharing the spotlight with mitt romney at the convention this summer, governor ultrasound has been assigned to chair the platform committee, which means you can find him in the back by the deflated balloons and cup cakes nobody wanted with everybody in him worried he's putting something in there about a medically mandated procedure. but virginia is the state that less than four years ago went for barack obama decisively, along with a lot of other blue surprises. the obama win was not a landslide, but coast to coast the country kind of fell in love with him. it's true new presidents come with high approval ratings. but his ratings were in the quadruple digits. that was this country in 2008. two years later we saw the biggest republican landslide in a lifetime. a red tide in congress in the midterms and in the state capitals across the nation. since then republicans have been governing as though they have a
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mandate for their agenda. this be a really radical couple of years under republican governing since the 2010 election. you see that with the republicans holding the 33rd vote to repeal health care reform. you see it with the parade of bills on contraception and abortion. you see it in states where republicans are in control, like virginia, which is becoming microcosm for the same debates. from blue in 2008, deep red ever since, and a deep form of red that seems way more conservative than the state ever looked before. republicans have been governing as though we are a very right wing country made up of very right wing states. and we're not. not at the federal level. and not in places like virginia, not if recent history is any guide. the same virginia democratic strategist who ran the jim webb for senate candidate that ousted a republican, the same guy that got warren elected gov now is now running a campaign against the number two in the house of representatives, virginia
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congressman eric cantor. joining us for the interview is a democratic political strategist from virginia. he's working on the campaign for wayne powell up against eric cantor. it's great to see you. thanks for being here. >> wonderful seeing you, rachel. >> is that a fair description of what happened in virginia since republicans took over? >> well, the ground is different now. you're talking about bob mcdonnell law. i call it sodomy bob. the story in 2003, he was in the general assembly, and he put in hi bill where if you were a judge, you had to swear on oath like boy scout honor that you never committed sodomy. well, a reporter asked him if he had ever committed sodomy, and he went, i don't recall. now, i've got a bad memory. i forgot where my car keys were plenty of times, and sometimes i forgot where my car was. but there's certain things that you don't ever forget.
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>> do you think that eric cantor is -- obviously you wouldn't be working on the campaign if you didn't think eric cantor is beatable? do you think he's beatable any year or do you think year in this virginia in particular he's particularly vulnerable? >> of course he's vulnerable. you have the organizing of americans getting out for democrats. that was the difference between the 2008 and 2010 cycle that's what we intend to do. we intend to take a battle to eric cantor. we're going to fight him. we're going to tell the truth about him. that is bought and paid for. the first thing i told the campaign, maybe i've been in the hills too long. but i'll say it a different way, he's evolved and paid for crook is what he is. and for those with the cantor
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campaign most know that c-r-o-o-k, crook. the bad guys who have given him money, and everybody in america knows the truth. we're now in the midst of a coin operated government. and he's the leader. >> when you say he's a crook, when you're alluding to what you said before, and thank you for not saying it on my tv show. you mean that he is taking money for votes? what are you accusing him of? >> of course he is. he gave $5 million to the young guns pack. i don't know what the young gun pack is all about anyway, what that crap is. it should be called the middle age roadblock. that's what they're doing. he's running the campaign on, you know, i'm in the way. america doesn't want people in the way now.
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especially the seven districts. you know, and we need to fight this guy. >> what do you think -- when you talk to people in the district and you're promoting you're candidate against eric cantor, obviously he has great name recognition. you think his negatives are high and people don't like him very much. but what are the issues on which a democrat can compete with a republican that famous and that well funded? >> well, it's simple. i have a pretty horse. i hope you have him on soon. wayne powell is a former retired military intelligence officer. and his politics are simple. he's an expanded jacksonian democracy. social justice for all people. that includes gays and women. we're going to shout that from the roofrooftops. and also equal pay for all americans, and that includes the working class.
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and we're going to do something that we do in virginia. we're going to wave the flag. i mean, this idea of the republicans stealing the flag from us, here is one of the most unpatriotic human beings who ever walked in the commonwealth. and we don't want to just beat him. we want to ruin him. he shorted u.s. treasury bonds. can you -- he bet against the united states of america while he was majority leader from his own portfolio. and you know, it's a good thing he wasn't a baseball player. i mean they threw pete rose out of baseball because he bats on his own team. eric cantor bats against his team and they don't do anything. >> mudcat saunders, now working on the campaign of eric cantor. good to see you here. >> thank you. >> thanks for being here. all right. best new thing in the world today still ahead. card, verizon 4g lte phone. the global ready one ? yeah, but you won't need... ♪ hajimemashite.
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this is what the republicans' jobs, jobs, jobs agenda looks like. by which i mean the abortion --. this is what the republicans did with the big new majority after the 2010 election. republicans' jobs, jobs, abortion agenda is so fast they're focusing on the area of legislation so intently it kind of seems like there should be a monthly news letter for following this sort of thing. there kind of is.
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exhaustive monthly updates on what republicans are trying to do to abortion rights right now. with such a gigantic body of work to draw from because they're working on it so intently, you can't actually pull out and identify trends in current anti-abortion law making. one of the trends since 2010 and maybe a few years earlier is a 20-week ban on abortion. it started in 2010 in the great state of nebraska. the republican governor signed a law restricting when women can get an abortion in the state. since then laws have been enacted in eight other states, including three of them that just passed the ban into law this year. one important thing to know on the bans is they are totally unconstitutional. according to row versus wade, according to the supreme court, states don't get to ban abortions before what's called viability. in the two years that these bans have been trending in the very red states, there hasn't been much of an argument on that point.
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people . this is what republicans did with their big new majority after the 2010 elections. the jobs, jobs, abortion agenda has become so vast they are focusing on this area of legislation so intently that it seems like there should be a monthly newsletter for following this sort of thing. there kind of is, if you count the exhaustive monthly updates on what republicans are trying to do to abortion rights now. with such a huge body of work to draw from, you can't pull out and identify trends and anti-abortion law making. there's categories and subcategories. one of the trends is the 20-week ban on abortion. it started in 2010 in nebraska. the governor restricted when women are allowed to get an abortion. can't have them after the 20th week of pregnancy in nebraska. one important thing to know about these 20-week bans on abortion, about when you're allowed to get an abortion is they're totally
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unconstitutional. according to the supreme court, states don't get to ban abortion before what's called viability. in the two years that these bans have been trending in the very red states, there hasn't been much of an argument on that point. people are doing this know it's unconstitutional. many people admit that they're unconstitutional. one group that wrote sort of model legislation is on the record practically begging to be sued, begging for a court challenge. they think if they get challenged, they might end up in court in a way that could have them overturning roe versus wade. they told politico, this is all an explosion, which we think if one by one, in state after state, these laws have been allowed to take effect and chip away at abortion rights established in 1973 by roe versus wade. as of today, there's reason to believe that's not going to be allowed to happen anymore. this is a landmark decision. today, the center for
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reproductive rights and the aclu filed against the state of arizona over its new ban, asking a federal judge to strike down that law is unconstitutional. "it presents positions with an untenable choice, to face prosecution for continuing to provide abortion care or to stop providing the critical care their patients need. this is the first time one 06 these bans has been challenged in court. we have talked about this that they weren't being challenged before. this is the first time since the 20-week ban came in fashion among the new republican majority that it's not just been allowed to become law. the anti-abortion forces behind these bans stand to get that supreme court battle they have been looking for. but if they lose, if the courts decide to uphold roe versus wade and strike down arizona's ban, the seven states that are already enforcing bans might
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have to stop doing so. anger. just watch harry reed, the mildest mannered, softest spoken man on capitol hill. watch him get the maddest you people have doubts about taking aspirin for pain. but they haven't experienced extra strength bayer advanced aspirin. in fact, in a recent survey, 95% of people who tried it agreed that it relieved their headache fast. visit fastreliefchallenge.com today for a special trial offer.
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hey. hey eddie. i brought your stuff. you don't have to do this.
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yes i do. i want you to keep this. it'd be weird. take care. you too. [ sighs ] so how did it go? he's upset. [ male announcer ] spend less time at gas stations. with best in class fuel economy. it's our most innovative altima ever. ♪ anger. just watch harry reed, the mildest mannered, softest spoken man on capitol hill. watch him get the maddest you over ever going to see him. watch. >> i hope that i'm not -- i am so upset. i got carried away with my rhetoric. >> that is the equivalent of hog
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smash. what makes him so angry he cannot come up with the word rhetoric? >> i am so upset that i think the olympic committee should be ashamed of themselves. >> he's mad at the u.s. olympic team's uniforms. so mad he wants to burn them. specifically the uniforms the u.s. team will be wearing at the opening ceremonies in london later this month. it's not because he thinks they're ugly, which many people justly think they are. but u.s. olympic team uniforms have been ugly before. it's not because they have tacky corporate logos on them advertising the company that designed them. logos on uniforms are also sadly nothing new. remember those roots hats everybody was wearing in 2002? i'm talking to you, senior producer ilan riley. the reason he's upset is because the uniforms are made in china.
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anger over that is bringing america together in a heartwarming way. two people that agree on almost nothing, john boehner and nancy pelosi, they agree on this. >> they're so excellent, it's all so beautiful and they should be in uniforms made in america. >> made in america. and look at the look on john boehner's face. you know what he said to reporters? >> you think they would know better. >> everybody. people you like, people you hate, people who are smart, people who are stupid, everybody hates these uniforms. i agree with john boehner. i hate that the uniforms are made in china, which puts me for maybe the first time ever in the same idealogical camp as fox and friends.
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today, i am one of those friends. >> take a look at a new ralph lauren ad out this morning which shows some of our olympic athletes in the olympic uniforms held in the uk. it has nothing to do with france. these americans dressed in these outfits with berets on. >> is this a new american trend now, berets? and you have to pronounce it that way, too. by the way, those jackets are very pricey, too. so i'm not sure people are going to be snapping those up. >> for women, the blazer $600. for men, it $800. and all of those clothes with made in china. >> i'm like, yeah, right, made in china. i'm with you guys.